tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77236842675208033262017-09-04T19:21:13.233+01:00Bliss FestivalSexual Freedom, Health &amp; Pleasure in Mind, Body &amp; SpiritBethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05131095754129363471noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7723684267520803326.post-43896714931984220892015-05-20T02:21:00.000+01:002017-03-17T23:51:11.648+00:00<div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: x-large;">Currently there are no Bliss events planned, keep an eye out here &amp; on&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: georgia, &quot;times new roman&quot;, serif; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/BlissFestival/" style="font-family: Georgia, &quot;Times New Roman&quot;, serif; font-size: xx-large;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Facebook</span></a>&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: georgia, &quot;times new roman&quot;, serif; font-size: x-large;">for any future developments.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large;">Bliss Festival creates events, &amp; provides online resources, that aim to foster &amp; promote Sexual Freedom, Health &amp; Pleasure in Mind, Body &amp; Spirit. Each event is different though the values &amp; intentions behind them remain constant.</span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large;">It’s rare in ‘’the west’’, particularly in Ireland, that space is openly given or taken to discuss &amp; explore sexuality &amp; this is exactly what our events aim to do, including our flagship event, the&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif; font-size: large;"><b><a href="http://www.blissfestival.org/p/the-festival.html"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Bliss Festival</span></a>!</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">All events welcome all people over the age of 18, regardless of any labels you may choose to place upon yourself or that others may choose to place upon you. Previous attendees at events have called themselves gay, heterosexual, bisexual &amp; label-less, male, female, genderless, trans, from many countries speaking many languages, ranging in age from their late teens to early 70s, black, white, Asian, single, partnered, monogamous, polyamorous, celibate etc – it’s a very diverse community, which is something we’re proud of!</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></span>Bliss Festivalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05646840794523483869noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7723684267520803326.post-64876430243800890932015-05-12T17:39:00.000+01:002015-05-21T18:13:38.222+01:00The Origins of Tantra - Matthias Rose (Facilitator at Bliss Festival 2015)<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">We are delighted to offer this article on Matthias' perspective on the origins of Tantra, and also delighted that he will be facilitating a <a href="http://www.blissfestival.org/p/summer-festival-2015-workshops.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc0000;">workshop</span></a>&nbsp;entitled ''Sexual Mysticism: Tantra meets Celtic Christianity'' at the <a href="http://www.blissfestival.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc0000;">2015 Summer Festival</span></a>!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2BNi91jciMs/VV4F8PnWNQI/AAAAAAAAA4c/hPbLbQhRWqg/s1600/matthias_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2BNi91jciMs/VV4F8PnWNQI/AAAAAAAAA4c/hPbLbQhRWqg/s320/matthias_1.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Origins of Tantra by&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://matthias-rose.com/welcome" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Matthias Rose</span></a></span></span></b></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tantra has always had a broad range of meanings and teachings. It is not possible to think of tantra as a single practice, philosophy, teaching, or path without encountering people who disagree with you. Nonetheless, this word ‘tantra’ does refer to something coherent and meaningful. To help get a handle on what the heart of tantra is, let’s look at how it came to be.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">The term itself, tantra, is actually a sly little pun.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">To understand this pun, you must first understand the word sutra. The word tantra came into use at a time when Buddhism, Jainism, and the various Vedic traditions we now call Hinduism were dominant in India. A core part of each of these religions were sutras — key texts. Perhaps the most famous sutra is the Kama Sutra, the courtly book of love and erotic arts that, by the way, is completely unrelated to any flavor of tantra. Another famous sutra is the Sutra of Patanjali, which continues to inspire yogis to this day. Etymologically, sutra has the literal meaning of ‘thread’. A sutra is a thread of thought, a particular line of thinking. (Some suggest, less persuasively, that sutra refers to the thread that bound the volumes of palm leaves the books were written on.)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hano6DjVTCg/VV4GUi1AQdI/AAAAAAAAA4k/VJ4JunvDrMY/s1600/y134171493864976418_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hano6DjVTCg/VV4GUi1AQdI/AAAAAAAAA4k/VJ4JunvDrMY/s400/y134171493864976418_0.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">If a sutra is a single thread of thinking, a tantra is the whole system of thought. The literal meaning of the Sanskrit word is ‘loom.’ Not just the cloth, but that machine on which cloth is made! That’s some one-upsmanship right there.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Originally, sutras were books, while tantras were teachings that could only be transmitted directly from teacher to student. It being a largely literate society, it was not long before books appeared. Cryptic little guidebooks, reference manuals. Cliff notes versions of the oral teachings. And these booklets also became called tantras. Sutras increasingly came to mean canonical scriptures at the heart of religion, while tantras were summary versions of oral teachings associated with particular teachers.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Initially, there was no particular commonality to the content of the teachings.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lSiZ9Oy4n1o/VV4HomyouzI/AAAAAAAAA44/vnQhSIp7kKk/s1600/tantra-sex_shiva-and-shakti.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lSiZ9Oy4n1o/VV4HomyouzI/AAAAAAAAA44/vnQhSIp7kKk/s400/tantra-sex_shiva-and-shakti.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">We turn to the sixth century. In Western Europe, the Roman Empire had fully disintegrated. The memory of stability and prosperity inspired every local warlord. Ignorance and illiteracy reigned supreme. But in India it was a time of cultural renewal, wealth, and intellectual advancement. One of the most vibrant practices to sweep the sub-continent had its origins in the Kashmir valley, in the North. This rich land was a cultural melting pot, but had particularly ancient religious traditions worshiping Śiva and Śakti — Śiva as the essence of consciousness and Śakti as the essence of power. Another use of the ‘loom’ metaphor, then, may be weaving of Śiva and Śakti with other ‘threads’ of Vedic culture, as well as the Buddhism and Jainism that were also thriving in this valley during this time.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">In weaving together Śiva and Śakti, some facets of these ancient traditions are particularly important. These were oral traditions, so by definition, transmission required a direct teacher-student relationship. These religions probably derived from a shamanic, matriarchal society within the Dravidian cultural milieu. They honored the feminine as the heart of the meaningful teaching. Women were often the most influential and powerful teachers. These traditions offered powerful rituals and ceremonies to mark points of transition in the growth of practitioners. There was a deep and important connection to nature. Perhaps most importantly, these were not abstracted or separated from the people’s everyday life. There was no priestly class, no monastic tradition.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E0Bj11FmzKI/VV4IBAEhiwI/AAAAAAAAA5A/9kfZUcMLUuk/s1600/Traditional-Puja-Plate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E0Bj11FmzKI/VV4IBAEhiwI/AAAAAAAAA5A/9kfZUcMLUuk/s320/Traditional-Puja-Plate.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">The teachings that began to spread throughout India had a powerful attraction to a populace that was increasingly well-off and had a strong middle class. This prosperous middle class was by and large left out of the caste-conscious religions of Vedic origin and the monastic-male Buddhism. Moreover, unlike the well-established and increasingly scholarly traditions, these teachings were vibrant, immediate, and taught that enlightenment was available right now, in this life. No reincarnation needed. The divine was seen not as an abstract and distant deity or collection of deities, but an all pervasive presence, that each of us are not just part of but — intriguingly, thewhole of. The difficult Buddhist concept of nothingness was re-interpreted as a universal and omnipresent consciousness. Drawing on Buddhism, the physical world was understood as illusion — but not as deception. Rather, each of us, and all the physical world around us, are equal differentiated projections of consciousness itself. As we expand into an awareness of the universal non-duality, we comprehend the illusionary nature of our otherness — from each other, from the world around us, from the divine.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">The whole of these teachings, which continued through the duration of the classical era, came to be called Tantra. Thousands of independent and individual teachers solidified into core lineages, with some diversity but even more commonality.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pWZm0zf7ApA/VV4IaPIhKrI/AAAAAAAAA5I/7QILLMnwHxE/s1600/FIGURE-1-LESSON-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pWZm0zf7ApA/VV4IaPIhKrI/AAAAAAAAA5I/7QILLMnwHxE/s320/FIGURE-1-LESSON-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Kashmir Shaivism came to be yet another religion in the rich stew of India over the next few centuries. But the influence of tantra extended to much of what we now call Hinduism, to most of Buddhism, with a special and distinct survival in the Vajrayana Buddhism of the Himalayas. Tantra was seen as a spiritual practice, some would say a spiritual science, independent of any particular religion, but adaptable to all.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">The commonalities that defined tantra included: direct relationship of teacher to student, embodied mindfulness, ritual as a means of deepening awareness, rejection of arbitrary religious and cultural rules, acceptance of all people (caste, nationality, language, gender), direct unmediated access to (or participation in, or embodiment of) the divine, a belief in body and the sensual experiences of the body as part of the path to the divine — not as a distraction from the divine.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jfnWsh-DBNU/VV4IyvzkclI/AAAAAAAAA5Q/eIUFjqpVnXM/s1600/0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jfnWsh-DBNU/VV4IyvzkclI/AAAAAAAAA5Q/eIUFjqpVnXM/s320/0.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">There is some debate as to the prevalence and importance of sexuality in the teachings of embodied mindfulness and in the rituals of classical tantra. But it was undoubtedly present. One manual teaches the discovery of unity with the divine in the bliss of orgasm. In another case, one of the most influential teachers of the Krama lineage, Cakrabhānu, was imprisoned and branded for corrupting the Brahmin class of his town with his licentious rituals.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">The writings that have survived are inconclusive on this point; but the writings that have survived are deeply, profoundly philosophical teachings from highly educated Brahmin class scholars who adopted the tantric practice. Moreover, these profound thinkers honored the tradition of their teachers by keeping the secrets of direct transmission secret. Like the mystery cults of ancient Greece, we can only surmise what happened behind the veils.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">However, the art and architecture that survived are not so inconclusive.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4MV6EqaJBbQ/VV4JNvhkuyI/AAAAAAAAA5Y/sm5nS--PWQw/s1600/ShivaLingamYoni.1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4MV6EqaJBbQ/VV4JNvhkuyI/AAAAAAAAA5Y/sm5nS--PWQw/s400/ShivaLingamYoni.1.JPG" width="248" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">The temple architecture of Vajrayana Buddhism, a direct descendent of tantric teaching, are vivid with imagery of the lingam (penis), the yoni (vulva &amp; vagina), and deities locked in carnal embrace. Illustrations from the tantric tradition often show practitioner and consort in sexual union. Note also that it is often assumed that the male is the practitioner and the female is the consort, but this is increasingly seen as a misunderstanding. Men and women were equal practitioners in tantra, and the great teachers were often female (while the great writers were often male).</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Classical tantra largely died out in the 1100's. Islam arrived in India. Buddhism retreated, and tantric practice largely disappeared. It survived in diminished form in three key ways: Vajrayana Buddhism of the Himalayas, the Brahmanic Śri Vidya lineage of southern India, and in Hatha Yoga. Vajrayana Buddhism did not carry on the all-inclusive aspects of tantra, but preserved many of the key texts, rituals, and philosophical teachings within a Buddhist (and highly deity-driven) context. Śri Vidya was sanitized of most or all rule-rejecting aspects of the tantra, but preserved philosophy and ritual within a Vedic context. Hatha Yoga preserved the practical teachings and practices of embodied mindfulness, but without much of the philosophical depth or any of the ritual elements.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Eight to nine hundred years later, Tantra has sprung back to life, with all the diversity, vibrancy, and ferment of its early blossoming. How did this happen?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zGYYwHDTsNc/VV4G2GBGprI/AAAAAAAAA4s/0kpKye4Hldc/s1600/1-RQp_XrF3T_8rwSZZ0BliOg.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zGYYwHDTsNc/VV4G2GBGprI/AAAAAAAAA4s/0kpKye4Hldc/s320/1-RQp_XrF3T_8rwSZZ0BliOg.jpeg" width="237" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">European spirituality already had a tradition of sacred sexuality and sexual mysticism before connecting with the spiritual traditions of India, Tibet, Nepal, China, Mongolia, and Japan. It was really in this meeting of the minds that contemporary tantra came to life. Inspired by the classical teachings of the tantric texts, western sexual mysticism reconstituted itself and reformulated its thinking, incorporating the understandings of energy, mindfulness, and breathwork with the spirituality of the passionate divine.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tantra was reborn.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XdOH_2E1COo/VV4J8YgdUII/AAAAAAAAA5g/XxO7tGGY3MM/s1600/image002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XdOH_2E1COo/VV4J8YgdUII/AAAAAAAAA5g/XxO7tGGY3MM/s400/image002.jpg" width="283" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Some schools and teachers align themselves with the spiritual teachings of classical tantra and a recovery of Kashmir Shaivism. Others are spreading forms of Vajrayana simplified and adapted for a Western lifestyle. Śri Vidya has reclaimed its tantric origins. Yoga teachers discovering the sexual dimensions of their craft have reconstructed the tantra that birthed it. The iconoclastic guru Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) developed and taught his own understanding of tantra, which gave birth to what is often called ‘neotantra.’ Other teachers, perhaps most notably David Deida, are starting with tantric principles as a foundation for their own unique lines of teaching. In some of these teachings the relevance and role of sexuality is the very heart of the teaching. Others vocally reject this as “not real tantra.” Interestingly, if you abstract out the prominence of sexuality, you find that same commonality at the heart of all these tantras: a focus on the teachings and personal transmissions of a gifted spiritual teacher; embodied mindfulness and practice; an emphasis on ritual; an openness to people of all genders, sexual orientations, backgrounds, religious beliefs, nationalities; teachings of direct access to and experience of a universal divine presence.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">In many ways, our culture is a remarkable mirror to the prosperous India of the sixth century. It should not be at all surprising to find a similar diversity of teachings with such a beautiful resonance to the tantras of classical india.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">This article originally appeared <a href="https://medium.com/@matthiasrose/the-origins-of-tantra-acc4334638e9"><span style="color: #cc0000;">here</span></a>.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://www.eventbrite.ie/e/bliss-festival-2015-tickets-12326891063" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Click here to purchase Festival tickets!</span></a></span></b></div></span>Bliss Festivalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05646840794523483869noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7723684267520803326.post-75266141403505741602015-04-03T15:38:00.000+01:002015-05-05T02:25:23.669+01:00Daring to Penetrate - Daring to Surrender by Dakini Cat<div style="text-align: center;"><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: normal;">A celebration of feminine and masculine energies in polarity.</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;">Note: the views expressed in each article are not necessarily representative of Bliss Ireland, the Festival or anyone involved with the Festival, they are personal to the author.</span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ixf_gnX1SR0/VR6npncLLlI/AAAAAAAADvI/zjSfR45wbkM/s1600/1622868_655402741239175_2581951884558432980_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ixf_gnX1SR0/VR6npncLLlI/AAAAAAAADvI/zjSfR45wbkM/s1600/1622868_655402741239175_2581951884558432980_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; text-align: start;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">This article has been inspired by people sometimes having a hard time getting their political correctness around how masculine and feminine energies work, specifically in love relationships, and even more specifically about the masculine gift of penetration into and the feminine gift of receiving. My feeling is that this is a reflection of our collective pain about how these gifts have been misused and abused in the past, and very little to do with how useful and healing they can be now. The polarity of masculine and feminine has been said to be false, out-dated, and hindering of a more advanced mode of relating and promoting a hetero-normative, anti-queer stance. Yet in my experience and throughout my life, I have been learning the opposite is true: that masculine and feminine energies do exist, that understanding them helps with practising 3rd stage relationships (more about what that means later) and actually encourages a broader definition of sexuality and intimacy than the simple hetero-normative model.&nbsp;</span></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">When I ask myself where my own polarity understanding comes from, the first answer that shouts itself at me is that they emanate from a very ancient place: the sun and the earth. That the sun is the archetypal masculine energy, exhibiting light, heat, direction, clarity, illumination, penetration, unconditional giving. The earth on the other hand exhibits feminine energies: dark, moist, coolness, diversity, creativity, inter-connectedness, mystery, receiving, and again, unconditional giving.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Tflvxb6h1vg/VQoajM-c1HI/AAAAAAAADrI/JGBF4_lShDE/s1600/Polarity.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Tflvxb6h1vg/VQoajM-c1HI/AAAAAAAADrI/JGBF4_lShDE/s1600/Polarity.png" width="275" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">These archetypal energies have formed the basis of our understanding of what it means to be human men and women for thousands of years and can be found all over the world in mythology, philosophy, yin yang, indigenous world views, and pagan rites to name but a few examples at random. But whilst this is the answer that springs to me now, it’s taken a long and difficult personal journey to come to those understandings. Believe me, I used to be as politically correct as they come and balked at the idea that men and women were fundamentally different in terms of tendencies; or girls and boys having different needs. It seems so strange to me that I ever believed that now.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">In my former existence I was a wife and am still a mother and both those experiences have taught me so much about polarity.... the hard way. First of all my twins, one whom holds a lot of feminine energy and the other, a lot of masculine energy, taught me from the moment of their birth two main things. First, they came with their personalities already intact. There was no ‘moulding the clay’ for me to do... just not do any damage and to provide opportunities for growth and learning. And second, that they were not going to be androgynous or want to play with both ‘boys’ toys and ‘girls’ toys just because my political correctness wanted them to be able to express the whole spectrum of gender possibilities. They were very definite and clear about their traits and preferences. One liked physicality, getting out there socially, and taking things apart, while the other was into communication, the senses, and weaving imaginary worlds.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pI20pcZ5WP0/VQocb3kxJjI/AAAAAAAADrU/M-AfupSvO60/s1600/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-12.49.41-PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pI20pcZ5WP0/VQocb3kxJjI/AAAAAAAADrU/M-AfupSvO60/s1600/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-12.49.41-PM.png" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Despite having 2 gorgeous children, and loving my husband, and us getting on pretty well together even though the ‘zing’ went out of our relationship pretty quickly, we split up when the kids were still little. Whilst at the time I thought my world had ended, it did bring about this search to understand better how relationships worked well and what the hell went wrong for us. Though I had initially dismissed it as irrelevant (we’re all from Earth I used to decry!) I went kicking and screaming to the book ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’. The introduction made me weep uncontrollably. What was described there was almost exactly the dynamic between me and my husband, except I didn’t have the vulnerability to reach out and he didn’t stay.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Whilst that book started my journey into polarity, love and attraction, there was a lot more to come, mainly from the inimitable David Deida, although Nityama, Jewels Wingfield, and Alex Vartman from The New Tantra have played significant parts also. Through these explorations it became clear that my relationship had become de-polarised. I was holding the masculine: coming up with all the direction, making all the plans, and pretty oblivious to the dance of my feminine intuition, while he had largely given up his masculine in order to be a New Age, sensitive man: he did all the cooking, said ‘yes dear’ a lot with a kind of sad resignation, and felt under pressure sexually. Using David Deida’s terminology we were in a predominantly 2nd stage relationship. In this stage the feminine is dominant as a response and reaction to the brutal masculine dominance of the 1st stage, but is yet to mature into the balance and beauty of the 3rd stage. In a 3rd stage relationship the feminine is confident, open, and relaxing into the masculine holding. The masculine is strong and clear and creates the space that the feminine can dance in. He takes She on a journey deeper into Source or Divinity than either of them can traverse alone.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZEgY1SaUHfM/VQodGlHsbLI/AAAAAAAADrc/zPRiMaOc6ms/s1600/tantric2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZEgY1SaUHfM/VQodGlHsbLI/AAAAAAAADrc/zPRiMaOc6ms/s1600/tantric2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">This is the kind of relating that excites me and fills me with hope for our collective future. I feel the enormity of the change in our world that would be inevitable if people were intending to express a 3rd stage relationship. And I turn into a sweaty, steamy mess when I dream into my man opening me more than I ever could myself with his sexuality, bringing his clarity and direction in service to the family, and holding himself strong in his service to humanity whatever that might mean to him. Unlike back in the old days when I felt ashamed of my sexual power, I now relish the idea of also being able to step into my healthy masculine when I can see that my man is worn down... to push him up against the wall and enter him with my body, my love, my presence and awareness in order to bring him back to himself. I’m also consciously involved in the practice of coming from my healthy feminine for the big chunks of time that I’m coming from a feminine place by trying to keep aware of my cutsey little girl, my manipulative woman, my ‘playing it small’ woman. All of these aspects come together for me in a way of relating that is sexy, highly functional, warm and loving, and most of all encourages, in fact pretty much insists on the continual growth of the participants. Now that’s something I would like my children to witness.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Maybe there are other ways to understand what happened between my ex and I, or an even richer set of practices to adopt in order to make the next time around oh so very different, but at this point in time I am immensely grateful and excited by the path I’ve chosen. I’m excited by others who are working in the same direction. I’m excited to help others use these tools in a positive way in their own lives. But most of all I’m excited to see the way in which the world will change as the crest of the 3rd stage relationship wave starts to crash upon the shore in the coming decades. And to those who fear that an honouring of the masculine gift of penetration is dangerous, or that feminine surrender is weak, or that playing with masculine and feminine energies can only be practiced by heterosexual men and women in a monogamous relationship, I would encourage them to ask themselves how much of their opinion is based on where we have been in the past? If you imagine wiping out the past just for a moment, doesn’t the dance of masculine and feminine energies sound... well sexy?... exciting?.... fresh?... and warm?</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">More from Dakini Cat on her <a href="http://dakinicat.co.uk/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc0000;">website</span></a>.</span></div></span>Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05131095754129363471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7723684267520803326.post-72273533602174808472015-03-24T20:57:00.003+00:002015-04-10T01:24:23.848+01:00<div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uij5FKoUtgQ/VR6nJlIj6jI/AAAAAAAADvA/fIk20XivJ40/s1600/10606270_10153038380038270_1677455037807225842_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uij5FKoUtgQ/VR6nJlIj6jI/AAAAAAAADvA/fIk20XivJ40/s1600/10606270_10153038380038270_1677455037807225842_n.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Helen Quinn is the co-ordinator of<span style="color: #cc0000;"><b> <a href="http://www.meetup.com/oshodublin/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Osho</span> <span style="color: #cc0000;">Dublin</span></a></b></span>. The group meets up&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">every Thursday in the <a href="http://lanterncentre.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>Lantern Centre</b></span> </a>on Synge Street in Dublin 8 to practice <a href="http://www.osho.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc0000;">OSHO</span></a> Active meditations. The group also hosts Dynamic Meditation approximately one Saturday a month and the occasional weekend long programme of <a href="http://www.osho.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Osho</span></a> meditations.</span></span></div><br /><div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img height="179px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/JjMzn_X8sSbUT0Vo6EuAahUBCMcWvY0sFSkyialWmxQYKwy3bllxJu9lmvtpuygBXF68FO6ckpXcAg0noYbskkCiJN9OYEZvEFzXu4O-hVrDZgTcHQt5Pg2sDqgzO1RvFzS26ByUDIg0scDD" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="467px;" /></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Sexual freedom: The path out of slavery</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Sex is the most powerful instinct in man</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The politician and priest have understood from the very beginning that sex is the most driving energy in man. It has to be curtailed, it has to be cut. If man is allowed total freedom in sex, then there will be no possibility to dominate him. To make a slave out of him will be impossible.” &nbsp;(p. 109, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Love, Freedom, Aloneness: The Koan of Relationships – Osho).</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img height="203px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/7wqB1bZFUCAY25Dr9gF8t7_HrzjHb0HTAD1hixaYav5BUO8cupgDjuo1JcDf_RKi5V6BAaeAFaSZ4t58SpkX00_16SytWWQfTkIa0las7EC6ysLshXSD2LYyi6gdinsKQAAcugkDtJUuxYma" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="299px;" /></span></b></div><b style="font-weight: normal;"></b><br /><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 1.295; white-space: pre-wrap;">I read this passage on my way home from Bliss Festival 2014 having experienced a weekend of sharing Osho meditations and a series of workshops that allowed me to express my sexuality on a moment by moment basis. Like many others making their way home I had been enveloped in an atmosphere of openness, love and authenticity. I felt free.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I believe it is no accident that weeks after starting Osho meditations in June 2013, I travelled down to West Cork to attend Bliss Festival. It is also no coincidence that OSHO Active meditations form part of the Bliss programme. The ethos of both complement each other. </span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Osho created a series of Active meditations beginning with his most famous one which is called Dynamic. He created these meditations because he understood that most of us struggle to drop into silent meditation: “I begin with your insanity, not with a sitting posture. […] With you dancing madly, chaotically, with crying, with chaotic breathing, I allow your madness. Then you begin to be aware of a subtle point, a deep point inside you which is silent and still, in contrast to the madness on the periphery. You will feel very blissful…” (p. 38, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Meditation: The First and Last Freedom – Osho).</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">There is something very delicious about letting go of the madness we carry inside us. To be free to express and consciously allow whatever to unfold. Reflecting on Beth Wallace’s post on <a href="http://www.blissfestival.org/2015/03/welcome-please-feel-free-to-click-on.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>The Birth of Bliss</b></span></a> and how she moved from a space of shame to one of freedom and love. I feel her story reflects the story of Ireland and her creation of Bliss is one method of finding our freedom and breaking away from the chains of sexual repression and shame.&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img height="247px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/jG9yZ984nFScL_7chQfZjuKGJG88mzi-UhoBdSvA_cY_5scE_ts_D3SB_xwDNYyFfFeDVwGYAcweabOTgYLKedrMHzFfNIIhJrSujp8tKB9-YQmZVY-tsrhqI4Cd7-Nik62ts_zgUm7W8DRa" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="284px;" /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In the above passage Osho goes on to compare man with the ox. The ox is castrated so it can plough the field and be biddable. Through sexual repression and shame, we have been energetically castrated too. He contrasts the ox with the bull who is free, strong and beautiful. We may have been conditioned to repress, to deny our sexuality / life force, to be controlled and biddable but unlike the ox we can grow our balls back. We can be the bull.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I have discovered tremendous freedom, healing and from time to time that “subtle awareness” through the OSHO meditations. I have grown in awareness, juiciness and experienced bliss. Hand in hand with this my life / sex energy has increased. This is not to be confused with unconscious hedonism. That too is a type of slavery. No, this is a conscious awareness of my life/ sex energy rising and responding / not responding in that present moment. </span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I invite you to share two special OSHO active meditations with me this year at the Bliss Festival. The first is Chakra breathing. This powerful meditation uses a breathing technique that opens up all the chakras and is a great method to open you up for the day ahead. The second one is Mahamudra which Osho describes as “the great orgasm”. Using specially designed music the first part uses </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Latihan</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> whereby your body moves of its own accord. You are not the doing, you are the being. This 'let go' experience prepares you for the second stage whereby you raise your hands to receive energy from existence until you are full and then bow down to give the energy to the earth. This is done seven times for each of the chakras. I hesitate to say what you will experience because I do not know. You will have a unique, direct experience.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></b></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Osho goes on to state that: “Sex repression, tabooing sex, is the very foundation of human slavery. Man cannot be free unless sex is free. Man cannot be really free unless his sexual energy is allowed natural growth,” (p.110, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Love, Freedom, Aloneness: The Koan of Relationships – Osho).&nbsp;</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img height="311px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/RtH0Zk_x3rLQR0XenIIJ6NbCG2eECHIMVxgAoSuHkWnLoZNwDgbU6_qJ8S7Oo4nenRtmABDdNNfnGD8ZHpnUy4ETrGYQR4PMfT2kipP3JcAb7hgmqiPjQn7Ge_e8qVhMUzLrgbi1roIRal5u" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="448px;" /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I invite you to come to the Bliss Festival and allow your natural growth to occur. To experience the loveliness of sexual freedom. To have your yes or your no honoured. To break free from old forms of cultural and social conditioning and journey on the pathway out of slavery.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> </span></span></div>Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05131095754129363471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7723684267520803326.post-13092401822717356182015-03-13T12:33:00.000+00:002015-03-24T21:04:49.844+00:00The Return of the Phallus<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BUvPQXYNMPE/VP8lsN7iKwI/AAAAAAAADpE/U8TABOeacaw/s1600/20121228-12.51.19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BUvPQXYNMPE/VP8lsN7iKwI/AAAAAAAADpE/U8TABOeacaw/s1600/20121228-12.51.19.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.shamballatantra.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>Bruce Lyon</b></span></a> returns to Ireland in 2015 for the third summer in a row and to the Bliss Festival for the second time, he loves to explore the places where the personal, planetary and cosmic journey meet, and to guide others on their initiatory journey into the life force that lies behind both the esoteric and erotic dimensions of love.</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">His chosen spiritual path was the TransHimalayan tradition but he has a background in many different pathways and trained with many teachers. In 2000 he co-founded <a href="http://www.shamballaschool.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>Shamballa School</b></span>&nbsp;</a>– and has taught extensively around the world for the last decade. He has degrees in ecology, psychology, astrology, and the esoteric arts and sciences and has written several <a href="https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8Mfa7z7Bj_AUk1GNTM2UkdfRHc&amp;usp=sharing" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>books</b></span></a> on these topics.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>~ The Return of The Phallus by Bruce Lyon ~</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">15th March 2013</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PSv2OuvdYJU/VP8eqVvSWiI/AAAAAAAADnk/-TJUOT8KVEU/s1600/667_10151493945764450_877306541_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PSv2OuvdYJU/VP8eqVvSWiI/AAAAAAAADnk/-TJUOT8KVEU/s1600/667_10151493945764450_877306541_n.jpg" height="400" width="257" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">We all know the archetypal story : A power that once existed in the world has been lost, a light has dimmed and now all things exist in a state of half-wayness, half-heartedness, half-aliveness. There is not enough of the power left so that we have the courage to break out of our daze, but it is not gone so completely that we have forgotten it. Therefore we feel uncomfortable in our semi - sleep knowing that there was something we were supposed to be, something more than...this. A part of us is waiting for the return of this power but we do not know the time or the place ...only that it is not now and it can't be us. Until it is.......</span></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Many people these days are talking about the return of the feminine and the coming age of the feminine, equating the time we have been living through with the patriarchy and the dominance of the masculine principle in our global society. And there is definitely truth here when we are seeing things in a duality. In the duality of masculine and feminine, the masculine has been emphasised or preferenced. What is often missed is that the the masculine referred to is not the deep or true masculine energy. Behind duality, the archetypal couple - the dual principles of the universe - are ever in love, ever entwined, eternally whole. The true masculine energy would never dominate or control the feminine, only celebrate her. So we have been living with the immature masculine, separated from wholeness, and his counterpart in the shadows has been the immature feminine. The true masculine and feminine energy always show up together. We need the return of the masculine as much as we need the return of the feminine. What is really lost is the power which lies behind and emerges through their union.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fB5WpG7cXoo/VP8fy7cVOmI/AAAAAAAADns/kPbNpgPDU9M/s1600/G-021S-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fB5WpG7cXoo/VP8fy7cVOmI/AAAAAAAADns/kPbNpgPDU9M/s1600/G-021S-2.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">So where did this dominance of the immature masculine principle come from? When we journey back into the story we find it at he heart of core civilisation cosmologies. In the greek creation myth the original father is Ouranus, the husband of Gaia. One of his sons, Chronos or Saturn castrates his father - the testicles fall in to the sea and give birth to Venus, goddess of love and sexuality. The original masculine principle loses his potency ( balls ) and gives way to the immature masculine ( his son ) who is the lord of civilisation, cycles and death. Modern civilisation has always been an uneasy balance between structure or Logos and life force or Eros.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y1U8UT5ktNE/VP8gWWkEMQI/AAAAAAAADn0/l2G7cvFRGcE/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y1U8UT5ktNE/VP8gWWkEMQI/AAAAAAAADn0/l2G7cvFRGcE/s1600/images.jpg" height="266" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">In the Judeo/Christian tradition we have the bible. In the beginning was the word...Logos..but the word now is no longer the living word ( Logos and Eros combined ) - the electric current that lives between the two cherubim in the arc of the covenant. The word becomes the idea, the concept, the written law which must be obeyed. We are no longer gods in connection with the tree of life but we are fallen and must be 'straightened' - we must obey the word of god, the law, as something external to ourselves, for we have lost connection to the living word being birthed moment to moment in the core of our being. We have lost our balls.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">And when it comes time to birth the new sun god, the Christ, we have a virgin birth. Mary, the feminine principle is overshadowed by the dove of the holy ghost and impregnated by God the father. The son, Jesus is portrayed as sexless, celibate and concerned with 'higher' things - in short, cock-less like his Father. In essence what is holy or spiritual has now been divorced from and defined by being 'not sexual'. The fact that is not sexual is what 'makes' it spiritual. Perhaps this was part of a greater dynamic to balance the overemphasis on the body and carnality but we certainly are all living with the consequences of this divorce. So where did this Christian story come from in the great river of our collective consciousness? How did we end up with a cock-less god?</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z4LhjDeu4_w/VP8g9zsXBFI/AAAAAAAADoE/hDQedw_VEWk/s1600/4974442848_0f167da82e_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z4LhjDeu4_w/VP8g9zsXBFI/AAAAAAAADoE/hDQedw_VEWk/s1600/4974442848_0f167da82e_z.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Egypt. Osiris, Isis, Horus. These are the original trinity. Osiris was tricked by Set, the opposing force to enter a coffin built just for him ( the father enters the tomb of matter, the living word becomes a concept ). Though found by his wife Isis, Set steals his body and cuts it into 14 ( sometimes 42 ) pieces and scatters it throughout the land. Isis, mourning, scours the land collecting his body together again - re-membering it. But there is a part missing ( in the version of the story that came to us through Plutarch ). His phallus!. Isis creates an artificial phallus out of gold and hovering over it in her hawk-form she impregnates herself with their son, Horus. ( note the connection to the dove impregnatiing Mary ). There are many other places to go with this story but let's just stay with the lost phallus. The true masculine principle that can seed life is replaced with a substitute. The living word is replaced with a thing, a marker or place holder that fulfills the function of the former but is not it.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">So now let's follow that story in to Freemasonry and the concept of the 'lost word'. A Master is killed and with him dies the knowledge of the true 'word' which can raise the dead - ie make us come alive. This word is replaced with a substitute - the A.U.M that the initiate must use to eventually 'raise the Master' and receive the true word.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bertRffYL9Q/VP8hY1dyD-I/AAAAAAAADoM/IckOqfkFp0s/s1600/10112-s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bertRffYL9Q/VP8hY1dyD-I/AAAAAAAADoM/IckOqfkFp0s/s1600/10112-s.jpg" height="200" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">There are many other places we could follow this golden thread but this should be enough for the purpose of resurrecting the life principle. The 'word' which rules civilisation on earth is the word of Law - the substitute word - the concept. Whether formulated into a bill or rights, a united nations charter, a constitution, a personal mission statement, a thesis on the masculine and feminine principles, the bible or the Koran ...this word is what we use for guidance in the absence of connection to the living word - the life principle which is never formulated, the godhead which can never be named but IS who we essentially ARE. We are god looking for god by chasing our concept of what god is. We are like the creator of a cartoon who has entered into one of his characters. Zombies following a will we have forgotten is our own.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">This life principle is the lost phallus of Osiris, the lost word of the masons, the lost godhead that lives hidden inside each of us waiting to be resurrected, the risen Christ at-oned with the father, Shiva's lingam, the balls of Ouranos.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xEDV6xUCwOg/VP8hzuiuAiI/AAAAAAAADoU/Q7Smwt0_mNk/s1600/Ancient_Roman_Bronze_Winged_Phallus_Pendant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xEDV6xUCwOg/VP8hzuiuAiI/AAAAAAAADoU/Q7Smwt0_mNk/s1600/Ancient_Roman_Bronze_Winged_Phallus_Pendant.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">And this phallic principle is not separated in any way from the feminine. The phallus is not the penis. It is what makes the penis rise. It is what makes the vagina moist and the clitoris erect. It is the erotic charge that brings the penis and vagina together. It is what is behind the outer manifest duality - the electric arc of the covenant between the two cherubim.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">In this sense the penis and the vagina, man and woman are BOTH form and when we identify with the form we replace the living word with the formulated word..we enter the coffin and lose our phallic power. Isis mourns for the loss of Osiris. The feminine mourns the loss of her partner. For the feminine to return the masculine must return. And they must return together in us. We all know the stereotype of men following their dick around as if the cock was a problem and phallic power the source of rape, war and other distortions of the masculine principle. But immature men are following the substitute cock. It is not phallic power that leads them but the longing for phallic power and its loss. And immature women are trying to fill their loss with the substitute cock, putting the penis in the vagina again and again trying to become pregnant with the child that will save their world. What they both miss is that the sexual longing is itself the indication of the presence of the phallus - the lost life principle - lost to us when we separated sexuality from spirituality. The phallic power enters us and we suddenly become aware that we are missing something and go to seek it in a partner. We do not know who it is arriving so suddenly, opening us, and we think the arrival has to do with the other who we then try to possess and fuse with - resulting in the withdrawal of the phallic power.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R_LxJ8ak5AE/VP8jSOkLFII/AAAAAAAADow/A9o66nBIfDQ/s1600/Cerne-abbas-giant-2001-cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R_LxJ8ak5AE/VP8jSOkLFII/AAAAAAAADow/A9o66nBIfDQ/s1600/Cerne-abbas-giant-2001-cropped.jpg" height="320" width="267" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">As long as we come together longing to be fulfilled or completed by the other pole we are in the world of the lost word, the lost phallus - zombies and vampires trying to suck a little eros out of each other, thinking this is love and wondering why we keep feeling alone and betrayed. When we understand what we have lost and we also understand that this life force is trying to reach us, fill us, fulfill us, in every moment. We long for it and yet we are barely able to contain it for a a few minutes in sex, meditation or prayer before sneezing it out of us in orgasm,turning it into a doctrine, dulling it with alcohol or the drug of busyness following the substitute word. If our spirituality has become dominated by the immature masculine - controlling, judgemental and pedantic - then our sexuality has become dominated by the immature feminine - demanding, possessive, attached and full of sentiment rather than love.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k8zjXlr3w40/VP8iwnG2RWI/AAAAAAAADoo/gZsRxC50JCw/s1600/picture-2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k8zjXlr3w40/VP8iwnG2RWI/AAAAAAAADoo/gZsRxC50JCw/s1600/picture-2.png" height="228" width="320" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">So our god has no cock and balls and our goddess is fallen. Jesus is nailed to the cross and Magdelene is reframed as a prostitute. Our sexuality and our spirituality both become places of longing for what has been lost rather than celebration of our wholeness. We seek enlightenment. What a joke. Like the tibetan proverb about a man riding his horse from town to town shouting 'Has anyone seen my horse?'. We seek fulfillment in sex. We long for 'the one' when we ARE THE ONE! The end of the search is the realisation that we are already that which we seek. The separation of sexuality and spirituality has created a longing in them both. The phallus is lost and we accept but are never truly fulfilled by its substitute. Our spirituality becomes impotent, words mumbled in church on Sunday while neglect, corruption, greed and hypocrisy tear the heart out of our planet. Our sexuality loses its divinity becoming an urgent wanting, a compensatory thrusting trying to squeeze a moment's ecstacy in the wasteland of our half dead lives.</span></div></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">When a man's penis stands up with the sunrise it doesn't want anything. When a women's vulva throbs and swells with life or her nipples overflow with milk they are not wanting anything. The wanting comes after. We have become afraid to let our bodies fill with the phallus, the living word of god because we are afraid of the wanting that can follow - in ourselves or others. Men are not too phallic but not phallic enough. Women must be veiled either physically or energetically lest their remaining phallic power arouses too much longing in the men or makes them feel their impotence and loss.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FSkJPr9dByU/VP8ilMGmJaI/AAAAAAAADog/26g0Tv1f1-k/s1600/images%2B(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FSkJPr9dByU/VP8ilMGmJaI/AAAAAAAADog/26g0Tv1f1-k/s1600/images%2B(1).jpg" height="248" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">In the Egyptian story, the phallus of Osiris has been swallowed by a fish - just like the ring in the Lord of the Rings. The fish is the symbol of the Piscean age - a period of two thousand years dominated in the western world by the image of the immature masculine face of God nailed to a cross in the attempt to get back in touch with the Father principle.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">In the aquarian age the symbol is the water bearer and the water is the water of life, the living word, the electric current of divine fire. This water is the lost phallus and it is the return of the phallic power that quenches our thirst, the longing that is present in both our sexuality and our spirituality. God the father is no longer a distant sky god who the world has fallen away from and needs atonement with. The Father principle is right here living inside of us waiting for our recognition, waiting for us to give up our chase and fall back into his arms. And the Mother principle, the goddess that we are is right there with him. We do not need to move away from the masculine and embrace the feminine. It looks like we have too much masculine but we do not have enough. We have lost our spiritual cock and balls and then asked the fleshy ones to compensate. We do not need to move away from the masculine and embrace the feminine. We need to let go of duality and the immature expressions of both masculine and feminine that results from loss of connection to our true source which emerges as a life giving stream behind and between them.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vQfM5JIIsgE/VP8goSxIe2I/AAAAAAAADn8/yH9AdzYOWBc/s1600/b629a51c9f772a83207a59858e58dc85.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vQfM5JIIsgE/VP8goSxIe2I/AAAAAAAADn8/yH9AdzYOWBc/s1600/b629a51c9f772a83207a59858e58dc85.jpg" height="400" width="261" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">When the phallus was lost it was replaced with the obelisk and egytpian obelisks have found there way into places of temporal power all over the planet from Washington to Rome. The obelisks are also lightning rods and it was interesting that just before the pope resigned St Peter's was struck by lightning. Lightning is the living word and when our bodies and souls are struck they resign their dominion and open to the living word. The obelisk of the soul is the ego - a substitute phallus standing up to receive the lightning. A false 'I' which must become an 'eye' through which the life giving waters can flow.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-c_qWPUxJ9PI/VP8j1N-sNrI/AAAAAAAADo4/V2oTe-CSIYM/s1600/736795778_9f74c93461.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-c_qWPUxJ9PI/VP8j1N-sNrI/AAAAAAAADo4/V2oTe-CSIYM/s1600/736795778_9f74c93461.jpg" height="400" width="267" /></a></div>Lia Fail, Hill of Tara<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">So reclaiming our phallic power is not something that only men must do or are capable of. It is a power that has withdrawn from our grasp until we realize that the true masculine and feminine principles are already united in us whatever our gender or sexual orientation; that spirituality and sexuality are not separate, and that we are already in heaven, on earth, as expressions of divine life and love.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">~ * ~<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Bruce is leading a week long retreat in Westmeath following directly on from the Festival, more information <a href="https://www.schooloftemplearts.org/Event/111/ista-level-1-ireland-2015#.VP4q6J2sXUk" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>here</b></span></a>!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></span> <br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><br /><br /></div>Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05131095754129363471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7723684267520803326.post-71140074347570653352015-03-08T22:52:00.001+00:002015-03-17T22:19:14.902+00:00The Birth of Bliss by Beth Wallace<div style="text-align: center;"><div><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;">Bliss Ireland Founder &amp; Director Beth Wallace briefly shares what the project is all about for her.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Beth has worked for almost 30 years in the sexuality field, she is, among many other things, a psychology graduate with special interest in forensic psychology, a professionally qualified psychotherapist, facilitator, speaker &amp; published writer. She's received initiations in several spiritual traditions in over 30 years of spiritual seeking, including Wicca, Tibetan Tantric Buddhism, and Peruvian &amp; Siberian Shamanism - she is no longer a spiritual seeker &amp; walks the path of no path that is the mystery of life!&nbsp;</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-k6r_n3JrB8k/VPyRGWphbNI/AAAAAAAADl8/9kzBWlIJ4YU/s1600/jnhhi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-k6r_n3JrB8k/VPyRGWphbNI/AAAAAAAADl8/9kzBWlIJ4YU/s1600/jnhhi.jpg" height="287" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">I'm frequently asked how Bliss Ireland came into being, the truth is that it's both a very simple and quite complex creature. It's deeply personal, it's political, it's ''spiritual'', it's about me and it's not about me, it's the child of a marriage between all the different aspects of myself, it's the sum of my life's experience and work so far, and more often than not I'm more interested in what it means to you than it does me!&nbsp;</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">It gives me great joy to create these events that offer space to explore and express this very fundamental aspect of who we are as human beings, it gives me great joy to raise these, sometimes uncomfortable, issues and subjects for discussion in Ireland, and the world, where we are experiencing both the aftermath and rise out of generations of shame, fear &amp; silence in relation to sexuality, and, it gives me most joy to offer spaces in which people can experience, express and share their own freedom, power, and love.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>I know about shame, fear &amp; silence.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>I also know about freedom, power &amp; love.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">I grew up in Ireland at a time, in the 1970s &amp; '80s, when there was great cultural shame and silence in relation to sexuality. It was a time when, among many other barriers to freedom, homosexuality was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">criminalised until 1993</span></a>, when a prescription from a GP was needed in order to access any form of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraception_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">contraception including condoms until 1992</span></a>, and when sex education was not taught, any where in any way.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TiHBZXl88Ok/VPyhsYPDlhI/AAAAAAAADmM/7q_lu537TMY/s1600/PRO_2014-04-11_LIF_002_31302270_I1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TiHBZXl88Ok/VPyhsYPDlhI/AAAAAAAADmM/7q_lu537TMY/s1600/PRO_2014-04-11_LIF_002_31302270_I1.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">''The Bird's Nest''</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">I was born directly into, and of, that shame. As the first child of an unmarried woman I spent over a year at the beginning of my life in an orphanage having been born in a mother and baby home, before being adopted like many other 1000s of children who were not actually orphans. Many 100s, perhaps even 1000s, died in, or not long after being in, mother and baby homes &amp; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_laundries_in_Ireland" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">Magdalene laundries</span></a> in Ireland in the late 19th and 20th century, the infant &amp; child mortality rate was, at times, twice the national average, most were buried in unmarked or mass graves, including my brother. Adoption can be 'successful' &amp; happy for many, equally for many it's a painful experience leaving lifelong scars in heart &amp; mind. Feelings of rejection and abandonment, <a href="http://nancyverrier.com/the-primal-wound/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">The Primal Wound</span></a>, whether the adoption is 'successful' or not, can last a lifetime &amp; manifest in addiction, difficulties in relationships, lack of self esteem and much more.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>I know about shame, fear &amp; silence.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>I also know about freedom, power &amp; love.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">I then journeyed more deeply into shame, fear and silence as I experienced childhood sexual abuse over the course of several years. It's well known and reported how sexual abuse can have <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abuse#Sexual_abuse" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">deeply damaging effects</span></a>&nbsp;and I can see how it wove itself destructively through my life, and in some ways still does. I also see how it has manifest in Ireland as a whole. As a result of generations of silence in relation to sexuality, generations of shame and guilt have led to a dire lack of education for all in relation to healthy explorations and expressions of sexuality - abuse of children and assault of adults, including the so-called ''<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_culture" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">rape culture</span></a>'' are a direct result of this, and this is borne out by research in countries where sex education is available from a young age and a more liberal and inclusive culture exists in relation to sexuality in general.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--ea7mJiL-Wk/VP8re2IYTfI/AAAAAAAADpU/B0AUwBofnzc/s1600/hands_seedling_graphic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--ea7mJiL-Wk/VP8re2IYTfI/AAAAAAAADpU/B0AUwBofnzc/s1600/hands_seedling_graphic.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">My journey <b>out</b> of shame, fear &amp; silence began consciously at 14 years of age, my adult self began to emerge &amp; she did not like what she saw or had experienced and so she began to set about understanding and changing it, alongside much raging against it. Nearly three decades of spiritual seeking followed, beginning with the Christian mystics, liberation &amp; feminist theology as they were emerging then, moving into the western pagan &amp; esoteric traditions. I explored the Kabbalah, Wicca, traditional hereditary Irish witchcraft, shamanism, several native American traditions when living in Canada and came ''home'' to an expression of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism for many years. In this searching and seeking for answers, explanations for, and distractions from, the hurts in the world &amp; myself, I found a peace of mind and salve for my heart that I had longed and hungered for. I did not, however, find a fire to match my own! My experience was that most of these traditions focused beautifully on the heart, the soul, the mind, but they left the body in its', particularly the raw and wild, sexual expression behind, sometimes deliberately and shamefully so - I knew there was great power in sex as I had felt the force of it's shadow, I knew there was power in the idea of spirit, and I knew the power of the mind, but, I saw &amp; felt no connection between the three.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>I know about shame, fear &amp; silence.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>I also know about freedom, power &amp; love.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">I found raw fire however, and was badly burned by it many times, in what I call my 'sexplorations'. It's very common for those who have experienced sexual abuse as children to 'act out' and become sexually 'promiscuous' due to a lack of self esteem, lack of healthy boundaries or simply an extremely damaging pattern of 'this is what I do' or 'this is what is expected of me', or perhaps an unconscious belief that sex equals love. A promiscuous nature, despite its' damaging cause, led me to sexual explorations that many others would not try, imagine or investigate, there is not much that is legal that I haven't experienced, even just once to see what it was like as my insatiable curiosity hungered for more and deeper understanding. And so I learned that sex has power, it can be used against the self and others in abusive situations, it can be used for oneself both with others and alone to <b>EMPOWER</b> oneself in ways that take nothing from others. But still I could not find a full and whole expression of sexuality that met my needs, that fulfilled me, there was always something missing. In my early 20s I spent a year with a ''Tantric Master'', learning all I could from him, receiving his transmission of the great traditional TransHimalayan mysteries that he had studied &amp; lived in for decades - sex &amp; spirit were connecting and it was the beginning of a new journey into freedom, power, and love.....</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WzfhtEwiGOc/VPzCOQg70uI/AAAAAAAADms/9JNxuXZRZhA/s1600/10348998_10152452849791298_115785514017732329_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WzfhtEwiGOc/VPzCOQg70uI/AAAAAAAADms/9JNxuXZRZhA/s1600/10348998_10152452849791298_115785514017732329_n.jpg" height="400" width="265" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">I wanted to understand this aspect of human nature and so</span><span style="font-size: large;">&nbsp;my professional career, of course, followed my personal explorations and expressions. Over the last 28 years I've worked as a Rape Crisis Counsellor, also as a counsellor, trainer and senior manager in the HIV/AIDS field, with drug users, sex workers, teenagers, as a university lecturer of GPs and nurses, and many other groups, always with an agenda of pushing the cultural evolutionary edge in relation to what is ''acceptable'' in relation to our sexual explorations and expressions. I studied post graduate Forensic Psychology with a particular interest in sexual offending so that I could understand what had happened to me, and to so many others. I became the first Irish woman to 'come out' in the mainstream media as bisexual and since then have been vocal, publicly so, about many issues relating to sexuality.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vs2j1EPTQls/VPzLQOkDlNI/AAAAAAAADm8/Z2659yb-gVw/s1600/546825_599816853384467_456584044_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vs2j1EPTQls/VPzLQOkDlNI/AAAAAAAADm8/Z2659yb-gVw/s1600/546825_599816853384467_456584044_n.jpg" height="295" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">It's my belief that there is nothing inherently shameful about our sexuality, any aspect of it, it can be and is for many people, a cornerstone of their experience of their own power as a human being, the aspect of their lives in which they experience the greatest freedom and passion. It is also the aspect of our lives that touches us most deeply and with the greatest vulnerability &amp; damage when it is violated, when our trust is betrayed - and so our sexuality is an aspect of us that has the power to both destroy and elevate, to damage and to empower, and, to connect us most deeply, because it is embodied, with love for ourselves and others.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>I know about shame, fear &amp; silence.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>I also know about freedom, power &amp; love.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">And so Bliss Ireland was born as a marriage of all these aspects and facets of my life experience - my 'sexplorations' married my professional expertise, my own sexual healing having experienced abuse, rape, and all that followed on from those experiences merged with decades of spiritual learning and practice, my desire to see Ireland and her people living <i>deeply empowered lives, free from shame, fear and silence</i> has all led me to creating this project, this community, and these events.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">It's my dearest hope that the events we create offer space for whatever is desired &amp; needed, whether that is healing from trauma, blissful celebration of love and union, a simple relaxation into nudity, a vibrant &amp; ecstatic cosmic sexual experience or a hundred other experiences - it is now time to loose ourselves of generations of that which has kept us small, that which has kept us imprisoned in our own minds, constricted &amp; contracted in our bodies - it is time for <b>REAL freedom</b> for <b>fully empowered</b> people living from <b>deep love</b> for themselves, for each other, for this land upon which we live &amp; which supports us, and for our planet as a whole.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">I want to conclude with the rich words &amp; voice of one of my favourite women, especially given that today as I write, March 8th, is International Women's Day, and also my birthday, the anniversary of the day of my birth into this mysterious life!&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Maya Angelou talks about how one can be down trodden, how others may wish to see us with our shoulders hanging low, our heads bowed, but, the triumph of the human spirit is that we rise, and we continue to rise, we are unstoppable, this may well be our downfall as a species, equally, it may be our saving grace.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">This is my invitation to you - if any of this very brief telling of my story resonates with your own then know that you are not alone in your sweet healing, powerful rising, &amp; joyous celebrating; 100s, 1000s desire to heal, rise and celebrate with you in freedom, empowered, and with love in their hearts not only for themselves but also for others.</span><br /><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">We rise!</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JqOqo50LSZ0" width="420"></iframe></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">8th March 2015</div>Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05131095754129363471noreply@blogger.com